Clockwise from top left: Candles beside a photo of 8-year-old...

Clockwise from top left: Candles beside a photo of 8-year-old Thomas Valva, who died in January 2020, after his father and his then-fiancee Angela Pollina made him sleep in a freezing garage in Center Moriches; an undated photo of Thomas playing; Pollina reacts to her guilty verdict in court Friday in Riverhead; and Michael Valva, right, listens to his guilty verdict Nov. 4, 2022. Credit: Howard Simmons, courtesy Justyna Zubko-Valva, Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca, Howard Schnapp

Thomas Valva should be an active, smiling 11-year-old middle school student, with big hopes and plans.

But Thomas never had a chance to even reach for such dreams. Instead, the 8-year-old with the bright smile died of hypothermia on a frigid day in January 2020, after spending the night on the freezing garage floor of his home in Center Moriches.

On Friday, a jury convicted Angela Pollina, the then-fiancee of Thomas' father Michael, of second-degree murder and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. The conviction comes after Michael Valva was convicted last year of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

With those verdicts, two dozen Suffolk County residents provided Thomas with a touch of justice — but that must be only the beginning of how we respond to Thomas' story, and those of others who preceded him.

The tragedy of his death filled us with anger and horror, and broke our hearts. The details were wrenching. The jury saw videos of Thomas and his brother, Anthony, shivering on the concrete floor. They heard testimony from teachers — who knew the boys were being abused and tried desperately to get them help — describing how Thomas ate crumbs off the floor under the bleachers at school because he was so hungry. Through text messages and accounts from others who had been to the house, they heard that Pollina screamed at the two boys, exiled them to the garage for, as one prosecutor put it, "the sin of their autism," and refused to make the cold, dark garage a little more comfortable for them.

Two people responsible for caring for young children showed no care at all. 

In the cases against both Pollina and Valva, a former NYPD officer, prosecutors painstakingly painted a dark picture of life for Thomas and Anthony with mountains of evidence to support their claims. Two juries spent weeks hearing those awful stories, seeing autopsy photos, an upsetting task they did on behalf of all of us, and rendered the only verdicts possible, the only verdicts that could give even a bit of justice to Thomas, who deserved much more.

The Suffolk County district attorney's office did a professional job prosecuting these cases, but Thomas' story must not end with the convictions of Valva and Pollina. There's more to investigate, more to understand, and certainly much more to reform. The failures of government bureaucracy, particularly within Child Protective Services and Nassau County's Family Court system, are particularly troubling — and require far greater attention.

This isn't the first time we've learned of children who were horrifically abused and killed by those they should have been able to trust and love. Thomas Valva's name is now added to the list of others, like 6-year-old Lisa Steinberg and 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown, who also lost their lives at the hands of abusive parents or guardians. 

Sadly, there are likely many more children we do not know about suffering pain and abuse right now, in homes with manicured lawns, with parents who might say all the right things but who act very differently behind closed doors. 

As we stated last fall after Michael Valva was convicted, "Three years later, it’s still not clear why Thomas Valva’s plight had to end in death. That means it’s still not certain that it won’t happen again."

On Friday, a jury did the only thing it could by convicting Pollina, who called herself "evil" but attempted to evade responsibility for Thomas' death. 

Now, we all must do more to make sure no other child suffers a similar fate. For Thomas, a little boy with a bright smile who should have seen his 11th birthday, and many more.

MEMBERS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.

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